Atonement
by Pollux Unbound
Summary: The words 'I do' spoken on holy grounds are often the culmination of love everlasting, at least for most of us. For Kuchiki Byakuya and Renji Abarai, they only mean goodbye, of the bitterest type, no less. For all that, it's never too late to atone. ByaRen One-shot.


**Disclaimer**:_ I do not own Bleach. Highly based on Night Strider's fic 'Out of all the Lost Causes'. I have permission, by the way. I also used a line from Nabokov's Lolita._

**A/N:** _This sucks.  
_

…

Whatever this feeling might have been, he knew nothing could force it to decay. Ever. It was love, if ever he knew what love was. This was the line of thought he was currently tracing. Standing among individuals as formidable as he was, Renji Abarai always knew how a potential source of boredom would look like right on the onset. Whenever he didn't like what he was hearing, and that was often, he would turn away and would try to find amusement elsewhere. But, right now, the solemnity all around him was growing so solid he was sure he had been transported somewhere else. And therefore there was nowhere else to go.

"This mission may take decades, even centuries. More importantly, consider yourself very much in danger of dying once you pledge yourself to this." The new Commander announced.

His closing remark simply served to reinforce the sordidness of what he was proposing. If anything, many hearts stirred that day, perhaps as many as the ones which had ceased to beat on that accursed day when the Quincies had decided to lay wreckage on Soul Society. But if Commander Kyouraku wasn't asking for volunteers, Renji fancied his sense of hearing was most likely out of order. No, what the Commander was doing was like nothing previously suspected; he was _begging _for volunteers. Of course, a number of lieutenants and captains believed they had what it took to be the doom of the Quincies, in which case hundreds of palms were liable to shoot up over their heads right about now. And so they did.

Renji's was one.

As soon as that was made clear, fear, whose definition Kuchiki Byakuya had learned the hard way and which he now hated too much, was now upon him. From the periphery of his awareness, other potent emotions were rushing past, each more complex than the next, but nothing as mastering as fear—which he had the presence of mind to at least conceal. But as Renji's raised hand had undermined him in an extent he himself could not fathom, he found his own shooting up the air.

"Captain Kuchiki, someone has to govern your Division. If your lieutenant is participating in this operation, it should follow you are to stay behind." He heard Captain Ukitake, his tone forbidding.

Maybe Byakuya was too astonished to be reasoned with, because he gave no sign of having heard the other captain. And because it was taking him too long to tuck his fist back at his side, Renji took it upon himself to mutter,

"I shot mine first, captain. You lose."

This was the day when soft farewells, as if whispered over coffins, would seize every set of ears on any individual's head. Too many hearts were labeled brave in so short an amount of time, but an even larger number of them were sentenced to be broken.

Byakuya's was one.

Just who was he to be immune to heartbreak? He thought of the things that had any power to break a heart, his in particular, and found none which could possibly top what he was facing now; distance. While lack of faith was often the cause of being romantically wretched, nothing was as absolute, as desolate as distance, the very face of complete absence. As things stood, thinking of Renji Abarai now without despairing became an impossibility. In fact, it was like refusing to see an incoming asteroid. He began to count the number of occasions when his lieutenant had fallen asleep in his office. It was unlikely for him to remember the exact count, but he knew it was the same as the number of times he had produced from the drawer a blanket which he had used to shield the snoring Renji from the cold. Events like this had always been a source of his seldom seen happiness. Other times it was the accidental brushes of the back of his Lieutenant's palm against his, when they'd stand side by side on field duties, too close for comfort. In short, being with Renji, whether on a mission or in an enclosed space, was always something to look forward to. And he had long before now discovered the pleasure in them to be unlimited. Embracing beneath the stars, kissing under the twilight—Byakuya had had his share of these and more. Indeed, if what Renji was feeling for him had been half as strong his, there would've been no reason for the lieutenant to take upon himself a mission that could open a gaping rift between them for an indefinite stretch of time.

For Renji Abarai, the distance he intended to lay between them could neither free him of his love nor make him accept it on its own terms. If anything, the distance was likely to aggravate it—make him yearn more, in other words. But he conjured it nonetheless, believing himself capable of anything as far as emotional durability was in question. In Renji's head, he knew that if Byakuya had earlier shown the slightest disapproval against his decision to offer himself, he'd have backed down right then. Instead, Byakuya had followed his example and had proceeded to volunteer for the same role, further stressing the importance of the mission. Never realizing Byakuya's one great wish at that time was to plunge into wretchedness with him, Renji closed his eyes, despairing. On that respect, he was presently beginning to understand their situation; it was necessary for either of them to partake on this valiant undertaking. It was the curse of the strong to make sacrifices, after all. Somehow, he began to curse the fact that he and Byakuya were powerful, that their moral obligations surpassed any such personal doubts. The thought seemed to perpetuate itself, until he could stand it any longer.

_So we are meant to sunder_.

Ultimately, if either of them knew what was truly going on in each other's head, there would be two less broken hearts bleeding right now in Soul Society. But the hearts kept on breaking, shattering to microscopic pieces.

…

The bleariness of Renji's departure prevailed with Byakuya as much as he continued hurting. That he was in pain and was suffering an emotional travail only he could understand were maybe the only proofs that life somehow continued. If you could call him alive in the first place. When he had been younger, he had fancied suffering to be elegant, something any warrior ought to experience. How he now regretted that notion only he could gauge. For all everyone knew, Kuchiki Byakuya's soul was carrying more weight than it could possibly endure.

Still, out of all the lost causes, he waited.

He waited, with a resolve as stubborn as death itself was not negotiable. But like any man alive, he knew that waiting could only stretch on for far too long. By any standard, under no circumstances should it reach infinity, and so by his reckoning five decades had been too long. Fifty long years. He wondered if Renji was still alive to start with.

Maybe he was dead.

…

"Do you, Kuchiki Byakuya, take this woman as your wife?"

He found himself holding his breath, here under the gaze of a hundred souls who had gathered to honor his vow. Even as he was clad in the most intricate raiment, he felt as if the wind were his only garment.

"I do."

"I now pronounce you man and wife."

The previous silence, which had been eerily dominating at first, now transformed into jubilation. Many faces came forward, phrasing the best of wishes, in the same instant when his bride tightened her hold upon his fingers. To his relief, it didn't take more than fifteen minutes before the crowd dispersed, to clear up the aisle on which he should march hand in hand with her who was now no less than the embodiment of his happiness in life. In truth, he was slowly realizing what this little ceremony would entail. _'Til death do us part'. _This realization swallowed him whole, just in time for him to be introduced to an unforeseen view of the life he had just chosen.

At one point, he figured he could no longer afford to make any allowances for the gathering's suffocating festiveness. He excused himself just then, regarding his own action as a moral necessity. His chest, in consequence, lapsed into ease as soon as he procured a decent distance from the tent. For minutes he reposed in this stolen tranquility, which he could not have otherwise acquired. And then the least expected of things happened.

A tall figure came into view.

The sight of Renji Abarai whirred Byakuya's nerves into life. Instantly, the captain fancied all this to be a dream. But if he was sleeping, if this wasn't real, why was he suddenly hurting like he had never before? If by some miracle this was really Renji Abarai, whom he loved, Byakuya was sure he would kill, move heaven and earth, to have the last eight hours of his life erased. As it was, he had no such luck.

"When did you…?" He asked weakly.

"Arrive? Just now. I've just emerged from the Gargantua. Went straight here, in fact."

Renji was wearing a tattered set of Hakama, his hair in need of combing, his face weary. But none of it presented any irregularity as far as Byakuya's vision was concerned. While he remembered Renji in a variety of ways more presentable than he was now, all he was conscious of was their nearness, if not the wretchedness engulfing them.

"Renji…"

"To start with, of all things to see first, your wedding would not have been at the top of my list. But it looks like I have no choice, do I, captain?"

"I waited fifty years." Was all Byakuya could say.

"Waiting was your only duty; Mine was to yearn, to keep faith and to return."

There was no deferring any resentment where Renji's choice of course was concerned. He had left and had taken too long to return; these were the plain facts staring at them now. As far as Byakuya knew, he had done what any reasonable man would do by succumbing to that lone pursuit from which too many had found sanctuary; he had tried to love again. Armed with reality, his reason now came to spoken,

"You left me."

"And so? That was enough to end us? Because I went poof and because you weren't sure I would be back? I expected more from you."

With the way Renji was speaking, Byakuya felt as though he was very near conceding without the slightest fight. And for that, the minutes slipped on thus desultorily until he found his voice, or courage, to say,

"Faith has boundaries, and most definitely limits. The moment you raised your hand on that meeting, nothing awaited what we had but the coffin."

"In simpler terms, it's over, huh? Did it even occur to you that I meant to come back, over fucking mountains and seas and dimensions? Come to think of it, I've been to fucking hell itself and look where I am now."

"Why did you ever leave?"

"Why didn't you stop me from leaving?"

"So it's my fault that you made that heroic choice. Fantastic, Renji."

"Byakuya, I _never _for once thought it was over. It wasn't over for me when you didn't stop me. I never minded it when not even your shadow showed up at my door in the morning of my departure, just as I failed to consider this love done for just because we were sentenced to part for a long time. It wasn't enough that I was living in literal hell with barely any resources to keep my head above the water. It certainly was _still_ not enough that five fucking decades have gone by. Even forever might not have been sufficient for me to let go. Nothing was enough. _Until _you walked down the fucking aisle and went on to promise yourself to love everlasting. That was what rendered it over. That was enough."

Half a century had certainly done its job of transforming this man into someone truly capable of deep sorrow. True enough, in many essential matters, his faculties had sided any number of times with righteousness to recognize the most necessary of things. This self-appointed righteousness was the sole reason why he had managed to come back alive; because he had deemed it necessary, beyond anything, to return to this man, to Kuchiki Byakuya, at all cost. Come hell or high water. And now determined to do what was right, Renji spoke again,

"Go now. She's probably looking for you. I can't name a single thing in your life more urgent than going back there, to where she is."

Byakuya felt like he lived a lifetime in the span of time where Renji said this. This was the end to everything; nothing could be clearer and more certain. Making amends, trying to rectify matters, now looked the same as seeking to revive the dead. Knowing he had no means of squaring his affairs in the final term, he answered,

"So be it."

Renji walked away at that. When he was no longer in sight, Byakuya felt as though every object in his vision was conspiring to undo him entirely. If he had any source of comfort, even in the remotest sense, he was sure it had all been blown to bits the moment Renji had turned around. From here on, his resolve was to regard the man he had loved as someone who had no relation to his life except as a previous happiness now irrevocably gone.

And yet in the end, his heart was ever so prone to disregarding the promptings of his brain. He had loved his lieutenant all along, had loved him upon the first time they had met, and loved him still as he spoke the last words he would ever speak to him. A love at first sight; a love at last sight. In reckless defiance to the order of things with which he ought to start his life anew, Byakuya knew he would never be capable of blurring out the corners of his being which were eternally and indelibly reserved for one such Renji Abarai. Alone and desolate beyond any redemption, he spoke to himself just then,

"The only real joy I had in life was the one you gave me. It's yours to give, to deny and ultimately to take back, Renji…my Renji."

To continue loving Renji from afar, if only to suffer the same pain he had caused him, was his only way forward, his atonement.

END


End file.
